


Rose-Tinted

by spoilersweetie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 10:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17405426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilersweetie/pseuds/spoilersweetie
Summary: The Doctor pulling explosives out of that backpack after her supposed hated of guns and weapons should have been a red flag. But Yaz supposes, like the Doctor had said; rose-tinted glasses.Yaz gets a glimpse into the darker side of the Thirteenth Doctor.





	Rose-Tinted

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a bit of a deep piece, focusing on the darker side of the Doctor and sort of a way to get my own thoughts and feelings down about certain elements of Thirteen we’ve seen in the series that haven’t really matched up. Also a bonus bit of character development for Yaz because she got absolutely zero and she deserves better. Just a note that I go into a little bit of the Doctor’s history with gallifrey but I don’t claim to have much knowledge on all that, and didn’t watch any of the last couple of series when it came back (I think?) and everything so if there’s any glaring errors please point them out and I’ll amend!

Having left the boys in the Tardis Kitchen, Yaz wanders back down the hallway towards the console room, hoping it hasn’t been moved again. She wants to check on the Doctor; she’d seemed bright enough when they had bundled back into the Tardis after their latest eventful trip to Sheffield after bidding Ryan’s dad goodbye, but she’d declined when Graham suggested tea and biscuits were in order ‘after all that malarkey’ - and Yaz had never known the Doctor to turn down biscuits. 

“Just need to check a few things. You lot go ahead,” she’d said, but the smile hadn’t reached her eyes. Yasmin knows today had been hard on her, more so than with any other monster they’d faced together. The Doctor was rattled by the Dalek in a way Yaz hadn’t seen before, and she wants to make sure her friend is okay. 

Glad when the familiar hum and golden glow lights up the end of the hallway, Yaz steps into the console room, spotting the Doctor with her back to her, leaning on the console as she gazes intently at the monitor. As Yaz moves closer, she can see what’s playing, and is surprised when she recognises it as footage from their encounter earlier; Aaron clinging on to the open doors, Ryan desperately trying to reach out to him. She glances around a little uneasily; she hadn’t even realised there was any sort of surveillance running in here.  

“What you doing?” She questions when she’s close enough, and the Doctor visibly jumps, quickly pressing something, the screen flicking over to an interface. 

“Yaz!” She gives her a bright grin, although she looks a little on edge. “Hi. Just running some system checks,” she says quickly and Yaz looks at her strangely.

“What? No you weren’t, you were watching back what happened with the Dalek,” she says, stepping up next to her. The Doctor looks at her with wide eyes.

“Oh yeah. That. I was just...”

Yazs eyes soften as she watches her fumble for words.  _ Oh Doctor,  _ she thinks,  _ always trying to be better _ . “You couldn’t have reached that lever while the door was open Doctor,” she says softly.

“Oh,” she replies. She clears her throat. “Right, no. I just thought... just wanted to check, you know.”

“It all worked out alright though?” She says, like it’s a question, a bit confused by this uneasy, hesitant version of the alien she’d come to know and love in front of her. 

“Yeah it did,” she nods, tapping at the keypad and avoiding Yaz’s eyes. She says her next words so quietly Yaz almost doesn’t catch them; “Nearly didn’t though.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so instead clears her throat, and settles for something that’s been bugging her since earlier. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” she replies immediately.

“When we left you in that warehouse... you said it was personal - with the Dalek. What did you mean, what happened?”

She pauses before answering, like she’s considering how to respond. Usually she spoke first and thought second; it was strange to see her choosing her words so carefully. “I’ve got a bit of a… complex history with the Dalek race,” she says carefully. 

“In what way?” Yaz can’t help her curiosity.

“It’s a long story.”

She tilts her head. “I’ve got time,” she says gently.

The Doctor sighs, moving round her console to flip switches and levers and doesn’t reply for long enough for Yaz to think she isn’t going to, seemingly content to fiddle with her ship and pretend she hadn’t heard the question, when she finally pulls down on the lever and the doors swing open.

Yaz turns to look outside, then back at the Doctor curiously.

“What is it? Where are we?”

The Doctor motions to the doors and Yaz walks over to look outside. They’re not landed anywhere, the Tardis seems to be simply hovering in space but laid out in front of them is what’s unmistakably a planet, a yellow-orange in colour, and glowing brightly before them.

“It’s beautiful,” she says in wonder, coming to a stop by the open doors. 

“Yeah,” the Doctor agrees, stepping up next to her and leaning against the doorframe. “It’s almost identical to my home planet. A perfect replica.”

Yaz turns to look at her in surprise. She hadn’t told them much about her past or where she was from… just bits and pieces here and there; anecdotes, most of which didn’t make sense and usually seemed too ridiculous to take seriously, like half of what the Doctor said anyway. 

“Wow,” Yaz utters. “What was it called again? Your planet?” She knows she’s asked before; it was one of the first things she’d been curious about when they first all came to accept that their strange new friend was in fact an alien, but she can’t remember; a lot had happened in those first few days with her. 

“Gallifrey,” the Doctor answers after a bit of a pause. 

“Gallifrey…” Yaz repeats, testing the word out on her tongue. She glances at the planet in front of them again. “So why are you showing me this one not…”

“It’s gone,” she says quickly, and Yaz’s eyes widen. 

“Well…” she continues, and gives a sigh and drops to sit down, legs dangling over the edge of the door. Yaz copies her, settling carefully next to her. “It was, at least I thought it was, but then it wasn’t, it’s actually just… in a pocket universe. In fact I’ve heard rumours it’s back in this one but…”

“You haven’t found it,” Yaz nods, understanding. “What happened to it?”

The Doctor is silent for a moment, her face illuminated by the soft orange glow from the planet in front of them. “Me,” she finally says quietly. 

Yaz frowns. “What?”

“There was a war,” she sighs. “A long… never ending war, the worst the universe has ever seen. Between my people… and the Daleks. The time war.”

Yaz’s lips part in understanding as she stares at her. “The Daleks destroyed it?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “No.” She says, and takes another pause, licking her lips. When she speaks again the whisper is so quiet yaz almost doesn’t hear her; “I did.”

“You… destroyed your own planet?” Yaz breathes, unable to keep the horror from her voice. “Why?”

“To end it. The only way to end the war was to end both races. Daleks and…”

“And your own people,” she finishes for her, feeling a bit sick. She shakes her head, unable to marry a person who could do such a thing with the kind-hearted hero she’d come to idolise over the last few months. She suddenly understands why the Doctor hasn’t shared any of her history with them. She swallows, throat dry. 

“But the Daleks,” the Doctor continues, eyes hardening, “they weren’t destroyed. They survived. They always survive.” She spits out the last words like they are a curse, and Yaz feels herself shifting away from her a little, startled by the darkness swirling in her eyes. 

“That’s why you were so intent on getting rid of this one,” Yaz says, and suddenly wonders if she hadn’t planned to throw it into a supernova all along.

The Doctor nods and they fall quiet, the information Yaz had learnt swirling through her head. It shouldn’t be a surprise, that a being such as the Doctor has horrors and darkness in her history - perhaps that was why she seemed to radiate such vibrant light now, like she was trying desperately to make up for the destruction she’d caused in her past. 

“You weren’t checking to see if you could have done anything differently, were you?” Yaz realises. Another long, tense pause settles between them. 

Finally, the Doctor shakes her head once. “I wanted to watch it burn again.”

Yaz feels a chill go through her.

“Oh,” is all she can think to finally reply. 

The Doctor sighs. “It was probably about time you lost the rose-tinted glasses,” she says quietly, perhaps a little bitterly. “It gets tiring… trying to be so…  _ right _ , all the time. And good - and I do try, Yaz,” she says quickly, turning to look at her, eyes honest. “I really do try.”

“I know you do, Doctor,” she replies immediately. “And you are -  _ good _ . You are a good person.”

“Sometimes,” she says, turning away again. “When it suits my purposes.” Yaz sees her lick her lips - nervously? “If Aaron had died along with the dalek today and I had a chance to do it all again tomorrow... I wouldn’t change anything. Not if it meant there was a chance of that thing surviving too.”

Yaz exhales at that revelation, and stares at her, an awful thought occuring to her; “did you know the vacuum corridor would expand?”

“Course I did,” she almost scoffs. “I’ve travelled this universe for centuries, I understand every law of physics that exists out there. You think I don’t know how a supernova implodes?”

_ Wow.  _ Okay. That was a side of her she hadn’t seen before - at least not directed at her. She knew the Doctor had an intelligence level beyond what any human could ever fathom, but scarcely had she seen her arrogant about it. And not like this. Was this how she really saw them? That there were all simple, expendable things she could fool so easily, tell them what she wanted to make them love her whilst masking this terrible darkness inside her?

“Why have you told me this?” Yaz suddenly demands, anger prickling at her. “You didn’t need to say anything and I’d have just gone on - just - thinking that you -”

“What, that I was perfect?” She says, and Yaz doesn’t know how to reply. The Doctor sighs, leaning her head against the frame of the door. “Maybe I was tired of perfection. Maybe… I just felt like you deserved the truth.” She turns her head to give her a small smile; a sad curl of her lips that doesn’t reach her eyes. 

But Yaz doesn’t return it, she still feels hurt and angry at her deceit. “You thought Aaron would be killed too,” she says quietly, “And you still did it.”

“There was no other way, Yaz - do you not think I would have done it if there was!?” She says desperately, but Yaz shakes her head. 

“Oh my god,” she breathes, stomach turning over as the realisation of what that means truly sinks in. “You meant to kill him. You actually intended on killing Aaron to get rid of the dalek!”

“Yaz…”

“But it’s worse than that,” she shakes her head again. “You chose a way to do it so we wouldn’t know, spun us a story so you’d remain the hero in our eyes when it seemed to be an accident!” She accuses, and the Doctor visibly flinches, refusing to look at her. 

“Yaz, I just -”

“How much have you lied to us?” Events flash through her mind, in a different light to before. She frowns. “Tim Shaw? How did he get to that planet, you said you sent him home - did you lie about that too?” She demands, and the after a beat, Doctor nods. 

“I didn’t mean to send him there though, I dialled the settings to the edge of the universe, I thought it was waste land -”

“It doesn’t matter,” she cuts her off sharply.

“No, it doesn’t,” the Doctor agrees quietly. 

“You killed Charlie,” she whispers quietly after another moment’s thought. “You… you did that on purpose - you saw him go down there, you had control, you could have delayed the postmen from opening the packages -”

“I could, yes,” she nods. 

Yaz breathes hard through her nose, nausea welling inside her. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” she mumbles. How foolish she’d been. Foolish and naive to put all her trust and her very life in the hands of this…  _ alien _ , this creature pretending to be their friend. She’d thought she cared about them - thought she loved them, like they all loved her, when really they were likely little more than pets in her eyes. 

The Doctor reaches out a hand and places it gently on her arm and Yaz flinches away from her. “Don’t touch me,” she snaps. She wants to get up and get away from her, but she feels light-headed and doesn’t trust her legs to hold her up at that moment.

She falls quiet, thinking for a long moment as she and the Doctor sit there, side by side, staring out into the peaceful silence of space. She knew they were all bad, the ones the Doctor had punished, there was no doubt about that, they all more than deserved their fates. What upset Yaz most and made her feel so betrayed was that she had not only lied about her actions to them but done so so easily - all the while acting like she always had the moral high ground. Her pulling explosives out of that backpack after her supposed hated of guns and weapons should have been a red flag. But Yaz supposes, like the Doctor had said; rose-tinted glasses. 

Well they were certainly off now, and Yaz feels hurt at her betrayal, and as stupid as she guessed the Doctor thought her.

When she finally glances over at her warily, not sure what to do or make of the new information she’d learnt, Yaz is startled to see a tear glimmering its way down her face, catching the orange light from the planet. 

She opens her mouth to comfort her friend - heart reaching out to her on instinct - but quickly remembers that this is not the person she thought she knew, and instead swallows hard. “Graham said you stopped him from killing Tim Shaw,” she accuses quietly, watching the Doctor’s face carefully. “He said he told you that’s what he wanted to do and… and you forbid him from doing it - told him he was better than that.” She frowns. “What right did you have to do that, when you’re no better yourself!?”

The Doctor sniffs, wiping at her cheek. “I didn’t stop him from doing it Yaz,” she says quietly, “He did that on his own. He was stronger than he knew. He  _ was _ better - he was the better man.”

Yaz recognises real heartache in her face and it confuses her. She opens her mouth to reply but the Doctor continues on. 

“Do you know why I lie to you about things like this? To Graham and Ryan - all of you?”

“Why?”

“Because none of you deserve to see who I really am. You humans… you’re always so much better than me. Better than I could ever hope to be.”

And suddenly Yaz understands. She didn’t fool them to keep them happy and smiling around her while she did what she pleased. It wasn’t because she thought of them as less or stupid or undeserving of being on equal footing with her; it was because she was ashamed. 

“This life,” the Doctor continues, staring at the planet in the distance, “It can leave a mark. When you travel through the universe and you know the fate of people, planets, races before they do, when you see how much darkness and cruelty there is out there, it can change you. That’s what I meant when I warned you that you wouldn’t come back as the same people who left.” 

“What you said to Graham,” Yaz says slowly, “You weren’t  saying that because of your own moral code, were you? You were trying to protect him. Trying to stop him from…” She cuts off, letting her words trail off, and the Doctor turns her head and finally looks her in the eyes. 

“I don’t want him to become like me. I don’t want that for any of you.”

“Doctor,” she breathes, voice suddenly soft, and she knows then - this  _ is _ the person she knew and loved, the one with the heart of gold, the one who would sacrifice herself in a heartbeat if it meant keeping everyone else safe. The things she did she never did without reason, and sometimes she had to make decisions that destroy to ultimately save. Because that’s all she’s ever wanted to do. “I’m sorry,” Yaz says, and the Doctor frowns. 

“What are you sorry for?”

She looks down, fiddling with her hands in her lap. “For what I thought… for what went through my head just then, and for accusing you like that, I should have known -”

The Doctor shakes her head quickly. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry that I’ve lied to you.” she turns to look away again and speaks quieter. “And that I’m not the person you thought I was.”

“But you are,” Yaz says gently, but the Doctor shakes her head. 

“Do you think Ryan would agree? If he knew what I meant to do?”

Yaz swallows. “You… you had to get rid of the dalek - to save us all -”

“And I wanted to kill it,” she says darkly and Yaz falls quiet, still feeling uneasy at this new layer of herself the Doctor had revealed to her. “I was certain Aaron would die too,” she continues, “Oh but I hadn’t counted on Ryan Sinclair,” a small smile comes to her lips then. “This is what I mean, you lot - you humans. Always surprising me.” The smile fades from her lips and she looks off into the distance again, brow furrowing, and Yaz feels her heart ache for the anguish she can see in her friend’s eyes. 

“It’s okay you know,” Yaz finally says, shuffling closer and placing her hand on the Doctor’s arm. “Everyone has a bit of darkness inside them.”

“It’s not okay, Yaz” she says, frowning down at the hand like Yaz could never understand. “Not for me. My darkness can get people killed.”

“So can mine,” Yaz replies quietly and the Doctor whips her head round to frown at her and Yaz withdraws her hand, drawing them together and fiddling with them in her lap. “It nearly did actually,” she admits. “First week on the job.”

The Doctor doesn’t reply, and when she risks a glance up at her after a moment she sees her staring at her with an open mouth. She shifts uncomfortably where she sits. It isn’t something she’d spoken about to anyone else, the only person who knew it had even happened was her superior, Martin, and the two involved, and it’s something she tries not to think about too often, but she thinks it may help her friend if she shared it, and so she takes a deep breath.

“I was so keen when I first started - I’d wanted to be a police officer since I was little and I was so happy when I made the force. I thought I was gonna change the world. Thought I could take it on too.” She scoffs. “Like that stupid rabbit from that kids movie.”

The Doctor face regains a bit of light at that. “Zootopia!” Yaz nods. “I love that movie.”

“Me too,” Yaz rolls her eyes. She clears her throat. “Anyway. I was out with my superior officer, Martin - they don’t let you out on your own until a few months in, keep you paired up until you learn the ropes. Anyway… we got radioed a call, someone had dialed 999, someone witnessed someone being attacked, or mugged or something in the city, just a couple of streets away. He told me to stay in the car, told me it was to dangerous, that I wasn’t properly trained to deal with such a situation,” she talks quickly, reliving that night in her head the way she had a hundred times over, stomach twisting in the same uncomfortable knot it did each time.

“But you didn’t stay in the car,” the Doctor says. 

“I did - at first. I watched Martin run into this alley, we were stopped at the end - there was a girl lying there… just lying there, all her bag and stuff everywhere on the ground around her and blood on her face. We thought the attacker had left, but he hadn’t. He was just hiding behind these bins, and when Martin ran towards the girl he made a break for it, right past the car I was in. I couldn’t just let him get away. I opened my door and knocked him down with it, and I jumped out and… and there was a gun lying on the floor by his hand, he dropped it when he fell, and I just - I grabbed it and pointed it at him - and… and I could hear Martin yelling at me to put it down, but like, couldn’t hear him? It was like everything got blocked out, all I could think of was that girl lying in the alley and the man who’d done it on the ground in front of me now.” She takes a deep shaky breath.

“Yaz,” the Doctor breathes, “You didn’t shoot him? Please tell me you didn’t,” she begs, almost a desperate edge to her voice, and Yaz wonders then if the Doctor doesn’t  _ need _ her - them - to be what she can’t. 

She shakes her head, and sees the Doctor relax next to her. “I wanted to. I think. I think I thought about it…. It was his eyes, they were so nasty - evil, like he was capable of anything. But I wasn’t really gonna shoot him, I was just filled with all this rage and - and then there was movement out the corner of me eye, like something was running at me and I panicked, I just panicked - spun round and pulled the trigger.” She is shaking even now, just thinking about that night, and she clenches her hands together tightly, looking intently out at the stars as she takes a deep breath. “It was the girl. She’d got up - she wasn’t even dead, and she was running at the man, full of anger like me I suppose… thank god I’m a lousy shot.”

The Doctor exhales, and Yaz thinks her breath shakes as much as Yaz’s own. 

“Guns,” the Doctor finally says sadly, and Yaz sees her shaking her head out of the corner of her eye. “They’ve got a lot to answer for.”

“I’ve never touched one since. Martin was  _ furious _ , but he covered for me. Said he saw something in me that promised I’d make a great officer one day... refused to let me out on anything major again though, even now, almost a year later.”

They fall quiet, and the Doctor shuffles a bit closer to her.

“So don’t go thinking you’re special,” Yaz tries to tease after a minute, attempting to make light in a heavy atmosphere. “We all have demons to deal with.”

“Yes, we do,” the Doctor nods. Then, after a moment, “I knew you were, though.”

“What?”

“Special.”

Yaz feels her cheeks heating up, and tries to wave off the compliment. “Don’t be daft. I’m just -”

“No,” she cuts her off. “You’re not  _ just _ , anything, Yasmin Khan.”

“And you’re not just a traveller,” she replies, thinking back to the beginning. 

“No, I suppose I’m not,” the Doctor admits with a sigh. “I leave a bit more of a mark on the universe than somebody just passing through.”

She gets that melancholy look on her face again, so Yaz bumps her shoulder with her own. 

“You leave it better,” she tells her firmly. 

“Sometimes.”

“Always. Ultimately.”

The Doctor sighs. “But at what cost?” She says quietly, and Yaz has a feeling she’s not just talking about the lives that have been lost at her hands. She reaches out, and tentatively slips her hand into the Doctor’s. The Doctor links their fingers, squeezing the hand tightly as if she’s grateful for more than just the contact. 

And they sit there side by side, floating in the middle of space, staring out at the stars, and Yaz is glad. Glad for this life, for this alien who’d dropped into her world and given her the universe. Because Yaz knows now that finally, she can make it better too. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please do share your thoughts with me on this! I'm so curious to know what everyone else thinks, and this is just my take on the Doctor's reasoning behind her words and actions because I think (I hope) how hypocritical she was this series with her moral code must have been deliberate and something that will be explored further in the future. Also her fam, especially Yaz, idolise her way too much and it was about time those glasses came off haha. Thanks for reading!


End file.
